"Women feed the world": FAO announces theme for World
Food Day 1998

FAO is putting women's role in food production and food
security at the heart of its awareness raising campaigns
for 1998. On International Women's Day, 8 March, the
Organization announced the theme for World Food Day 1998 -
"Women Feed the World". World Food Day is observed annually
on 16 October in more than 100 countries to mark the
anniversary of the founding of FAO.

India: a
woman farmer at work in the fields

This year's theme both pays tribute to the skills and
dedication of millions of rural women around the world and
calls for intensified efforts to support these women in
their work.

Available statistics resoundingly contradict the
stereotype of the farmer as a man. Globally, women produce
more than half the food that is grown. In sub-Saharan Africa
and the Caribbean, they produce up to 80 percent of basic
foodstuffs. In Asia, between 50 and 90 percent of the work
in the rice fields is done by women. After the harvest,
rural women in developing countries are almost entirely
responsible for storage, handling, stocking, marketing and
processing.

In rural and urban areas the world over, women bear
primary responsibility for feeding children and other family
members. They spend a higher proportion of their income on
food for the family than do their male partners, and they
are largely responsible for cooking and food preparation.
The newly appointed Director of FAO's Women and Population
Division, Sissel Ekaas, said, "Without any intended offense
to struggling and hardworking male farmers, of which there
are still many out there, the trend towards feminization of
agriculture in large parts of the developing world is now
widely recognized."

Despite their overwhelming contribution to food security
- particularly in the poorest areas of the world's poorest
countries - these women are often "invisible" -
economically, statistically and in popular and media images.
Much of their labour outside of the household - both regular
and seasonal - goes unpaid. When data is collected for
national statistics, gender is often ignored or information
is only collected from men, who are presumed to be the
household heads. In addition to this, most women do not own
the land they cultivate. "Women still only own around 2
percent of all land," Ekaas said. "In the 50th anniversary
year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, equal
right to land ownership must be recognized as a fundamental
human right."

The combined effect of these and other handicaps is a
huge growth in the number of poor women. Since the 1970s,
the number of women living below the poverty line has
increased by 50 percent, in comparison with 30 percent for
men. Announcing the "Women feed the world" theme for World
Food Day, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said, "Women
may feed the world today, but, given the formidable list of
obstacles placed in their path, will they be able to produce
the additional food needed for a world population expected
to grow by three billion by 2030?"